Superbug death toll could hit 10M per year

Drug companies should agree to "pay or play" in the urgent race to develop new antibiotics to tackle a global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), according to a British government-commissioned review.

Led by former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill, the review said every sector affected by the growing threat of superbug infections -- from patients, to doctors, to governments, to the healthcare industry -- must be forced "out of its comfort zone" if the issue is to be successfully tackled

This should include pharmaceutical companies, O'Neill said, which should be subject to a surcharge if they decide not to invest in research and development (R&D) to bring successful new antibiotic medicines to market.

For who do decide to "play", he said, a reward of between US$1 billion (NZ$ 1.48 billion) and US$1.5 billion (NZ$2.22 billion) should be paid for any successful new antimicrobial medicine brought to market.

"If we don't do something, we're heading towards a world where there will be no antibiotics available to treat people who need them," O'Neill told reporters at a London briefing as he presented a final report from his team's 18-month review.

He repeated the review's previous estimation that AMR could kill an extra 10 million people a year and cost up to $100 trillion by 2050 if it is not brought under control.

Any use of antibiotics promotes the development and spread of superbugs -- multi-drug-resistant infections that evade the antimicrobial and antibiotic drugs designed to kill them.

O'Neill was asked last year by Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron to conduct a full review of the problem and suggest ways to combat it.

Launching his final report, O'Neill said it had identified 10 areas where the world needs to take action. Some of these focus on how to reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics, while others look at how to increase the supply of new ones.

"Our arsenal to defeat superbugs is running out and needs to be replenished," the review said.